LONDON (Reuters) - The UK government is considering changing rules compelling employers to contribute to pensions from 2012 and is urging an increase in the state pension age to adjust to longer life spans.

The government has set up a three-person team that will spend three months looking at how to make automatic enrolment work and report to the government in the autumn, pension minister Steve Webb, said in a speech to pension stakeholders and the media yesterday.

Pension reforms implemented under the former Labour government include the stipulation that from 2012 employers either automatically enrol workers in existing pension vehicles or pay a minimum contribution of three percent into the planned National Employment Savings Trust (NEST).

The commission has been asked to find the best way of increasing private pension saving, and balancing costs and benefits to individuals and employers, Webb said.

"It may be that the current scope for automatic enrolment is the best way of achieving this (increasing pension savings). Or it may be that changes need to be made," he said.

The pension enrolment requirement, aimed at encouraging savings, applies to workers 22 years of age or older earning more than £5,000 a year.

NEST has the potential to reach £150 billion ($224.6 billion) by 2050.

Economist Paul Johnson; David Yeandle, head of employment policy at manufacturers' organisation EEF; and Adrian Boulding, pensions strategy director at Legal & General have been appointed to the committee.

Work and pensions secretary Iain Duncan Smith, who was also at the briefing, said the age to start receiving state pension should be raised to 66 from 65 to address the increase in life expectancy.

The new Conservative-Liberal Democrat government confirmed in its emergency budget on Tuesday it would review accelerating the increase in the state pension age to 66.

"We are also planning to review the date at which the state pension age starts to rise to 66," Duncan Smith said, adding "we also have to think about the pace of change as we move beyond 66".

A BBC report yesterday said the increase may be enforced as early as 2016, but the Department for Work and Pensions declined to comment yesterday. Plans approved under Labour stipulate a raise in retirement age to 68 by 2046.

Duncan Smith said pension age benefits make up two-thirds of his department's annual expenditure, about £100 billion.

Smith said working was good for older people's health, living standards and families. The government's budget is aimed at slashing a record peacetime budget deficit to almost nothing over the course of its five-year term. There have been a series of pension-related announcements made by the government this week.

In the budget, a "triple guarantee" was made on the Basic State Pension, under which the current pension of £97.65 per week will be increased from next year by as much as the higher of price inflation, earnings inflation or 2.5 percent.

Earlier this week, the government announced the appointment of former Labour minister John Hutton to prepare a report to address the issue of public sector pension costs.

Public pensions are likely to become a hot issue for the current government, which must balance the need for savings with pledges to protect accrued rights.

Public pensions are more generous than their private sector counterparts. Experts have also queried the accuracy of official estimates of liabilities.